An absolute truth, sometimes called a universal truth, is an unalterable and permanent fact. The concept of absolute truths — what they are and whether they exist - has been debated among many different groups of people. Philosophers have waded in the muck of defining absolute truth for millennia. Alternatively, many believe in relative truths, where facts may vary depending on the circumstances.

It’s difficult to disprove the concept of absolute truth, since saying that there are no absolute truths - that it is absolutely true that no absolute truth exists - is itself an absolute truth. One can say, “From what I know, I believe there are no absolute truths.” Still, this is murky territory.

There are a few things that we all agree are absolutely true, but they depend upon an agreement in definition. Take, for example, the case where a person has a cat in his house. Obviously, no one would agree, as an absolute truth, that this cat, “was the nicest cat in the world.” However, most people would agree, given evidence that at that specific point in time, that there was a cat in the house. Some might quibble over the fact that people might define “cat” differently; that is, some might not describe a lion in a house as "a cat in a house."

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People often look to science to determine whether something constitutes an absolute truth, but science tends to avoid absolutism. Even when scientists reasonably believe an explanation, it is often couched as theory or proofs. However, as we advance in science, we often find ourselves disproving proofs. Yet a great deal of proof on a subject makes it more likely, but does not make it absolute truth.

Many religions contain absolute truths. For example, a Christian might say, “ I know Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. By following his teachings, I will live in heaven when I die.” To the Christian this may be an absolute truth. Imposing this statement on others is where this absolute truth, to the Christian, becomes debated. While many may agree that the Christian believes absolutely that Jesus is his Lord, they are unlikely to agree that Jesus is everyone's Lord is an absolute truth. When a person’s absolute truth is extended to all others, it can be viewed as a philosophical statement of exclusion. Those who do not endorse the absolute truth of another are either pitied or attacked.

However, proper functioning societies and communities often rely on certain agreed-upon truths. For example, the US holds rape and murder as crimes and uses language to define rape and murder. Failure for a society to define such terms, and agree upon their definition could result in chaos.

Thus while absolute truths may be hard to come by, and difficult to agree upon, some amount of truths are generally required for a properly functioning society. Whether these truths are absolute or universal is a matter that has been and will likely continue to be debated.

Another analogy to God: absolute truth is what was before and what will always be. It is irrelevant to say mathematics is only understood by human beings. That's like saying a tree falling in the forest doesn't make a sound if no living thing is there to hear it. The tree falling would still upset the air and create pressure waves.

The theory of everything keeps changing because we get access to more and more powerful tools and thus make more observations, not because 1+1 no longer equals 2. And not because the previous calculations were incorrect; they just didn't have as much information. Math has and will always be able to process and prove observable phenomena. Yes, quantum physics deals with probabilities, but that is because of the observations, not because of the math.

At one level, we have reality. Slightly removed from that, we have our perceptions of reality, which are a representative map. Removed from that, we have mental conceptions about those perceptions (not reality itself). And even further removed from that, we have statements about those conceptions (not the perceptions, and certainly not the reality).

The map is not the territory. No statement can contain an absolute truth with any certainty (let alone accuracy) because a statement is only a map, of a map, of a map, of the actual reality. And at each level there is simplification (the whole point of a map), symbolic substitution and error.

True is true, regardless if no one wants to believe it. We now know that the earth revolves around the sun, that there is gravity, that things mutate and evolve. These are all true. I can be an uneducated religious fop who rejects all these truths and all that means is one more thing is true: I am an uneducated, small-minded fop.

This seems like a good a place as any to put my view across. Recently I have spent, in my view, an insurmountable amount of time looking for answers on the internet. No matter how close I thought I was to an unveiling, it got lost in more questions. The fact I knew the source I was trusting to answer those questions is compromised, and therefore I didn't trust it. How could I trust a source that, when I ask for a plumber in my town, it gives a number of results that is three times more than the population? It didn't stop me asking more questions. My rationales at the time were, at best, insane. Do I have to make mistakes in my language, is wikipedia friend or foe, so if I search a random reference (e.g., Faustus) I read in a blog, will I get factual information. Was that reference a benefit? Am I a troll? Do I want to be? Have the drugs opened my eyes or given me delusions? Have I constructed all this perceived conspiracy. Am I divisible by 0? Am I getting nearer to a unworldly life change or have I looked into an innocent game way way too deep. Do I even put a stupid question mark at the end of my questions?

I have come to the following conclusion I wish to share. I do not believe ignorance is bliss and will continue asking questions and will not live just being content, nor will I believe I will only be happy once I have found the answer. I will be happy looking. In TV crime dramas, the villain is ultimately caught by leaving a single solitary clue, and it is, I believe to be the general consensus that, if you leave no clue, you will not get caught, true. I have recently concluded that strategy is not logical. My strategy would be leave so many clues, and so much conflicting evidence that it is impossible for anyone to separate you from the dozens of other suspects that come up in the investigation. If my profession of choice was a cat burglar, I would make sure I went to a hair dresser first and collected the day's cuttings.

To me, the only logical truth at the moment is, a human, while in a 'confused as bleep' emotional state emits an energy which is being harvested by someone/thing. That would fit. The absolute truth for me is, I love my son taking how I perceive those words to be at the time of writing this. I don't know. How can we still be agonizing over the same questions that Aristotle and his ilk had all those years ago? I know, I know, who is to say they even existed?

I could go on. This is not easy. As I look back, I realize that if I had read this this morning, even I would have probably thought I was a troll. What have they done to me that I can't even trust myself?

Absolute truth is that we know that we don't know, and relative truth is in how much we allow ourselves to actually belief that we do know.

Everything that exists within the domain of awareness was created by consciousness, which is trying to define the relationship between consciousness and stimuli.

Therefore the statement: "I am aware, but I have not idea of what I am aware" is an absolute awareness of my own incompetence to know absolutely.

It seems as if absolute truth in only to found in oneness, or unity, or atonement.

Thus as long as consciousness is separated by boundaries of self, thus not seeing everything as one, then truth is relative, but when consciousness unite, then and only then can there be absolute truth.

Thus at the same time absolute truth does exist and does not exist. It is revealed by asking: "If I remove a drop of water from the ocean, does it stop being the ocean."

"Truth is relative" is a relative truth. Why does that mean that truth is ever going to be absolute? Why just because a statement is relative does this mean at some point there "has" to be an absolute truth?

As I understand it, an absolute truth is something that is true simultaneously everywhere and at every point in time. We only have any knowledge of a very small snapshot of our universe so I really don't see how we can claim to know of any absolute truths. Truth requires knowledge, intelligence, etc. It's a concept. I don't see how you can even claim mathematics as an absolute truth. Some 10 billion years ago, before Earth even existed, there was no one around for mathematics to have any meaning at all, so I don't see how it can be true at that point in time when it didn't even exist. Even a concept of absolute truth is relative to individual perceptions of reality.

Oh, and you can't say that "x happened at y" is an absolute truth, because you are containing the statement to a specific point in time, which automatically makes it relative. "I read this article at 11:19 pm on june 20" is not an absolute truth. It was not true, because on june 19th, it hadn't even happened. And saying "I read this article" is not an absolute truth either, for the same reason.

Any arguments in this subject based on morality or religion are, actually, I won't even go there, only to say they're highly subjective.

Regarding mathematics, but not science (science is theories by consensus and does not claim to be absolute) is where my mind really rebels. Did 1+1=2 even before the concept of mathematics existed?

To me, absolute truth is pretty much the same as "God", because that's the only other thing that I know of that is infinite. Except of course in mathematics where infinite seems to pop up all over the damn place, but mixing philosophy with mathematics is pretty dangerous territory imo. Irrational numbers -- bleh! And I don't believe in God, so that can't be an absolute truth, because it's not true to me.

And if truth is different for different people, which is it, how can truth be absolute? Because for truth to exist, it must be filtered through conscious reality, which itself is inherently relative. The whole thing hurts my brain!

Every piece of information contains truth in it at a certain degree. For example, some people say: "girls love flowers most of all" and others say "girls love to kiss most of all", both of these statements are true,none is absolute,each one excludes the other one.But if you manifest patience and superimpose them then you get a clearer picture, and you see that "girls love flowers the most sometimes and other times they adore to kiss".

What i mean is, that by putting together all the pieces of information that you have together you get closer to the absolute truth, which justifies the concept of unity. Something separate cannot be absolute. The whole ensemble of matter, visible and invisible tied together forms the absolute truth which, i think, is that invisible thing we call god.

that's a good point no. 1 made. there is something such as absolute truth but i think it would be better to refer to what we believe as true as beliefs rather than fact because over time facts have been entirely disproved either by scientific evidence or otherwise whereas beliefs leave room for contradiction.

truth is a personal matter, because if i believed something to be absolute truth and someone else believed the exact opposite, then truth as a phenomenon would not exist because two contradicting factors cannot exist in one realm of truth.

This is simple. Of course there is absolute truth. Everyone here who has posted a comment about this article has just proven that absolute truth exists. How? It is absolutely true that you all read this article!

A perfect example of something that was thought to be an absolute truth that has now been changed and somewhat recently solved. In mathematics, it was said to find the square root of a negative number but now with the somewhat newly accepted use of the term i used to represent the square root of negative one allows a person to actually find a solution to a problem that was previously thought, with absolute truth, that there could be no solution.

But then in complete contradiction I could now say that i believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth, hence creating an absolute truth.

I never ceases to amaze me the time and effort some people waste on proclaiming their foolishness. Clearly there is such a thing as absolute truth. Logic verifies this conclusion as has been stated here and elsewhere.

Whether you believe in a God or not matters little to the existence of absolute truth. General consensus would attribute the possession of absolute truth to be a godly attribute.

To the degree that we understand these absolute truths, whether from science, personal learning, shared wisdom, or even faith, the bottom line is that there is only one correct answer to any question once semantics and stupidity are removed. To proclaim there is no absolute truth and or that something is relative is to be lacking of the correct answer. There are only two sides to any debate: the right and the wrong. Which side are you on?

What I am wondering is about a constant state of absolute truth to each moment regardless of perception, since those are relative. Maybe we are unable to touch on absolute truth because once we did it would be altered by the very fact that we had now known of it. Maybe that's part of our human reality of physicality.

God's universal law of order that while in physical form we are hindered from attaining such "keys" to the universe because we are unable to sustain them. Reminds me of the scene from Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull when she wants the truth but it kills her. Haha. Love Hollywood! But loved reading this. Very engaging!

I think I have found am absolute truth: "no one does anything purely for someone else"

I know it sounds harsh on humanity, but no one does anything if they don't get something in return, whether that be money, a favor, thanks, or a simple warm feeling inside. In this sense, pure altruism does not exist, because one would only do something for oneself, and not what that action is, becomes secondary to personal pleasure (the thing that life is all about after all).

Absolute or universal, as applied to truth, can be observed from a conditional point of view, but must be unconditional to be both absolute and true. It must be true to all things, everywhere. Time is the most fundamental absolute truth. It acts upon all things, in all places, regardless of whatever conceptual conditions you attempt to apply. Anything you label, i.e., religion, mathematics, etc., are concepts limited to human understanding, and do not apply to other beings or things, and therefore are not absolute truths.

In my opinion, absolute truth, such as one's birthday, doesn't change over time, space, circumstance and place. Evidential (legal), professed (faith), scientific (tested), government (political) 'truth' may all be questioned.

Also, what of the affect of bahramdipity ("Three Princes of Serendip")and nulltiples when discussing truth(s)in any of the above categories? Whenever I hear, "perception is reality", I shudder.

Absolute is also a relative term, and a lot in human understanding depends on the definition of the word that he understands. Specifically, it's up to him/her how and what he feels or realizes about that particular meaning.

At the end of the day, when a person is questioning or arguing they are defending or attacking on the basis of their individual knowledge and understanding.

Everything in our world is defined. When X asks Y, "Do you like chocolate?" though the answer might be in yes or no form, however the image that comes into Y's mind while answering and X's mind while questioning most probably will be different.

The color black can be coal for some and night for others, depending on their understanding and perception.

My son just asked me if he could have candy. I stated that we did not have anymore candy. He want and checked the candy jar to see for himself that there was no candy. When he saw for himself that empty jar then he accepted what i had stated was true.

Now I am no rocket scientist, but this is not that difficult to figure out. The absolute truth is there is no candy in the candy jar. It was not dependent upon him seeing it or not. It also was not dependent upon him believing me or not. He could have believed that there was candy in the candy jar but that would not make candy appear. So there is still no candy in the candy jar. Even if nobody is there to perceive it.

You see, absolute truth is not dependent upon anything to be. It simply is.

When I say "absolute" it means something that holds in this or any other universe regardless of location in space or time or the viewpoint of the observer. And that is unattainable. Can't say "it doesn't exist".

the speed of light in a vacuum is absolute 186000miles/sec. interestingly it can be measured as a wave (frequency) or a particle (photon) (particle/wave duality of light). the one thing, is simultaneously two different things.

people live, people die. we all have emotions except for some crazy people. we say and do things based on what we believe and what people say to believe, but who knows? maybe we're all controlled by some little alien child's video game controller.

I'm sorry dude but you killed any argument for the non-existence of absolute truth by stating the fatal flaw in said argument: "since saying that there are no absolute truths - that it is absolutely true that no absolute truth exists - is itself an absolute truth."

But no matter what is said, people can choose to reject the absolute truth of absolute truth. One of man's best abilities is that he can make any illusion in his mind and believe it.

Imagination is both the driving force for progress and the driving force against it.

semess has a good example of 'absolute truth' that of God that His is absolute and not relative.

There is a 'margin of error' in all human philosophy. Just let us compare to "time". As time goes on we lose or gain seconds, minutes, etcetera. Is this related to the 'string theory' or 'black holes'? I conclude nothing is absolute.

In my opinion, the absolute truth cannot be described by a normal person, or even scientists. The absolute truth about who is God was told to it's people by the real messenger of God, Like Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad etc. These messengers were not educated by anyone in the school, but were inspired by God, the only one and none is equal to one God.

why do we need truth? should i give you the true answer or the false answer?

just believing something isn't enough. you can believe that ice cream is the cure for diabetes, and you can even be sincere about it. ice cream tastes good doesn't it? but the truth is what corresponds with reality. the reality is that you can eat ice cream all you want, but it won't cure you.

"There is no truth that can be proved to be absolute" is a better statement than "There is no absolute truth"

Approaching the above statement through logic,

If the above statement assumed to be false, that means that "there is a truth that can be proved to be absolute". Then you have to prove the statement that "there is a truth that can be proved to be absolute" which would be a recursion with no end.

On the contrary, assuming the above statement to be true doesn't need proof and makes it an axiom.

It doesn't matter what you say about it, a mixture of helium and neon produces a bright line at 632.99139822 nm. Okay, you can argue about the definition of the meter, redefine it, yell about it, but I can still take a simple mixture of helium and neon and they will emit light with a fixed wavelength.

You can fuss about the words "helium" and "neon," but the gases are still there, semantics don't change that. There is a difference between truth and your understanding of truth, and semantics don't change whether or not the line is there.

Of course, you could still conjecture that the helium and neon won't emit 633 nm light, but the trouble is that we can then try the experiment, and one of us will be right, and one of us will be wrong (and that will be a truth!).

The light is there (every red laser pointer in the world testifies of it) in spite of your conjecture that there is no truth.

Also, this is why science isn't "made up": at the end of the day, the universe determines physics, you may make up a conjecture, but you haven't made up the physics. The physics is determined by what happens when you try the experiment.

We can conjecture that it will all break down one day. Okay, maybe it will. If that happens, if the 633 nm line disappears, and all of quantum field theory stops working, then maybe you're right to say that there is no truth.

But the most you can say right now is that there might not be truth, maybe some day quantum field theory will break down. But until that day, everything tells me that the universe doesn't care what you think, it just keeps going.

Of course, I haven't even submitted the idea of God. There's nothing to tell me that there can't be a God of absolute truth, either. Allowing for God (at least one compatible with the Judeo-Christian tradition) makes it very hard to avoid absolute truth.

Nonetheless, even without God, the most that you can say in the face of field theory is that it might not be absolutely true (and, if you assume there is no God, you can say that, but you have a hard time saying that there is no truth).

First of all, you are all wrong! There is no absolute truth! No one knows what is in the rest of the "universe." What if gravity doesn't exist there? What if when you "die" you really go somewhere else and live? You will never know if there is an absolute truth. You are only saying what you know!

Someone made up math. Someone made up english. Someone made up science. You cannot say that they are true!

How do you know for sure the "planets" revolve around the sun? Have you been out there to watch it? No, I don't think so. There would be no such thing as numbers! 2+2 does not equal 4! it doesn't matter. Everything just happens because it happens and is here because it's here.

@anon59263 you are full of it. this was all made up! it would have never existed if someone didn't make it up! i mean i love math. but seriously, it is all a lie. we are just full of lies and everyone on here is an idiot. If you just freaking think about everything, you can believe this. i mean you were never there in the past. you most likely won't be there in the way future.

i do not believe there is any way of knowing if there is an absolute truth. yes you could say that the cat was in the house. if i was there, yes i could see it. but it's not an absolute truth! it's just so hard to explain!

@anon61581: first of all, there might have been no such thing as chess way back when and second, people play chess differently. They don't have to go by the exact rules because it's their mind thinking not yours.

Think of the statement "truth is relative". Let's follow this statement to its logical conclusion. First, let's begin by asking "is the statement that 'truth is relative' an absolute or a relative statement?" If the answer to that question is "absolute" then the statement is false because it is a contradiction. If the answer to the question is "relative", that means that the statement is sometimes true and sometimes false.

In other words, truth is sometimes relative and sometimes absolute (no middle ground on this one). Now according to the law of non-contradiction, two contradictory concepts cannot be true at the same time, meaning that truth cannot at the same time be absolute and relative. Logical conclusion: Truth cannot be relative, therefore, truth is absolute.

As far as ("I" know) As I make the "realization" at "this" moment in time: "This essential knowledge is of an ideal nature; in all our finite grasping we intend something universal. In this idealistic sense, then, absolute knowledge is possible. The idealist, however, in order to achieve this ideal and absolute knowledge inevitably "transcends" his finite, incarnate self and is elevated into the ideal realm itself. This does not address the statement at issue, however; for it denies the first part – our fact of embodied being". Simple.

As far as I "we" know we are talking about a concept. The concept of "Absolute Truth." To start with, let's focus on defining the true meaning of "Absolute Truth" and work our way up or down.

AS far AS I "we" know and as you probably realized these are just concepts. True knowledge absolute doesn't exist, even if, let's suppose it did exist, that may be at a higher or ultimate level of thought or consciousness.

Now let's break the news, I "we" ensemble concepts related to this level of thought and consciousness and we can only define what we call relative Absolute Truth.

Panorama, you are making this far more complicated then it really is. You don't have to have any knowledge of something in order for it to be absolute. Either something is or isn't, regardless if there are any intelligent beings who fully understand it or not.

But I do agree that fully understanding anything absolute in the physical world is indeed impossible. However, in the language world, as long as you stay within the bounds of the exact rules every time, and make no errors, you will arrive at the same absolute answer. But we're talking truth here. Absolute truth, unfortunately, does not exist in the language world.

There are most certainly absolute truths. I don't even see why it is a debate.

I've been reading through the comments and I just shake my head when I read comments that try to discredit the concept. What most fail to realize is just because you cannot translate absolute truth into a language doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That's preposterous.

Language is flawed to begin with. One thing to someone could mean something completely different to somebody else, which is demonstrated by the comment about the different numerical base (nice try, by the way). That does not mean that absolute truth doesn’t exist.

You have to separate language from reality. Absolute truth exists in reality, not language.

Given any winning position on a chess board, there is one and only one number of fewest moves to forced checkmate, assuming the losing side plays the moves to stall checkmate for the longest number of moves.

On the other hand, there are many many more relative truths. That's a whole other subject altogether.

Absolute truth does exist, and in fact I have just run across a new book that says that the words in it are directly from God, hence the name of it, "From God to You Absolute Truth."

Inside of the book are universal truths about creation, the purpose of life, death,religion, politics, global warming, abortion and homosexuality. All of us know the truth when we open our hearts and minds and listen, for our soul or spirit always knows the truth. We just need to remember.

If all of these were absolute truths, nobody would believe in creationism.
And 2+2 is actually 20 (in base 3). Truths are not absolute, the only things we know as truth are just things yet to be disproven, and among those, we still have to define them to be true.

As noted in this brief article to claim or deny truth is absolute is to then demonstrate that truth is absolute. If truth is relative and everyone is to believe as such relativism would then be an "absolute" for all.

Truth is discovered. In other words an Absolute has always been such. It is never created. 2 plus 2 equals 4. No matter where we go, on earth or space, 2 apples and 2 oranges would equal 4 pieces of fruit. The "math" has always been there, it was not created but discovered.

the moon (that revolves around the earth) slowly moves away from earth, which is in orbit around the sun. a hydrogen atom contains a single positively-charged proton and a single negatively-charged electron, the hydrogen-1 has no neutron.

You say, "It’s difficult to disprove the concept of absolute truth, since saying that there are no absolute truths - that it is absolutely true that no absolute truth exists - is itself an absolute truth. One can say, “From what I know, I believe there are no absolute truths.” Still, this is murky territory." and disprove your own point in the same sentence. Yes, you can choose not to believe in absolute truth, but does that make them not exist? No. Just like you said that if there was a cat in a house at a certain point, whether or not you believed it to be true, it was still true.

Absolute Truth, though some might not trust what that is, exists outside of our own understanding, but still remains absolute in that what actually happened did occur in the purest sense of absolutes. It is our trust in what we perceive and hope in the truth that we will understand absolutely. Regardless of how we feel towards the absolute, it still remains the absolute truth. Those who seek the absolute truth seek God and hope to understand their surroundings, and those who say there is no absolute have merely quit in their personal quest towards true understanding. In their quest they have become deceived into believing whatever someone else wants them to.

There is an absolute truth, unfortunately it is kept in places where it would "appear" to be pragmatic. But "appearances" are deceiving. Each of us are the truth, have the truth, know the truth. That is not to say that we as individuals "own" our own version of it (which would be pragmatic), but to say that all things have an origin; a source. An individual becomes part of a community, but a community never becomes part of an individual. It's a large number of small things to make up a large thing, but a large number of things can never make up a small thing. Truth is the essence of all living things, we just choose to "label" everything to death. Try listening to your conscience--there will be no question of what truth is again!!

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